Words: , 1881:

When I was a young man in my twen­tie­th year, I wrote a po­em to which I paid but lit­tle at­ten­tion. Some­one saw it and set it to mu­sic. It ap­peared a sim­ple thing at the time… but some­how there was that some­thing in it that struck a pop­u­lar chord in the hearts of the peo­ple and it will live on after I have passed away…it was such a small ef­fort. There must have been some par­ti­cu­lar ap­peal or in­spir­a­tion­al set­ting in it, or it would not have been so un­i­ver­sal­ly loved.

Music: Ma­drid (Carr), tra­di­tion­al Span­ish mel­o­dy; ar­ranged by , 1824.

Come, ye children of the Lord,
Let us sing with one accord,
Let us raise a joyful strain
To our Lord, who soon will reign
On this earth, when it shall be
Cleansed from all iniquity;
When all men from sin will cease,
And will live in love and peace.

O, how joyful it will be
When our Savior we shall see!
When in splendor He’ll descend,
Then all wickedness shall end.
O what songs we then will sing
To our Savior, Lord and King!
O what love will then bear sway,
When our fears shall flee away!

All arrayed in spotless white,
We will dwell ’mid truth and light.
We will sing the songs of praise;
We will shout in joyous lays.
Earth shall then be cleansed from sin.
Every living thing therein
Shall in love and beauty dwell;
Then with joy each heart will swell.

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